UMD Civil Engineering Students Host Midwest Conference In Superior

SUPERIOR, Wis. — UMD Civil Engineering students are getting creative with concrete over at Barker’s Island in Superior.

They are hosting a regional conference where other Midwest universities join in to show off their concrete creations. Those include concrete canoes, cornhole setups, and frisbees.

10 teams from Minnesota, Illinois, and Wisconsin all were competing to win fun prizes. The Midwest conference is for the American Society of Civil Engineers is put on every year.

“It’s just a really great opportunity for our students to apply everything that they learn in the classroom to a really fun and enriching real-world project,” said Jack Jarvela, Western Great Lakes Symposium Executive Chair.

The concrete for the canoes is made from scratch. They weigh 300-400 pounds each and take about a year to make.

“It’s really just a lot of trying things out, experimenting, asking for help. And just trying to figure out how to do this through past experience and through experience throughout the year,” said Halle Bechtold, Captain of Bradley University’s concrete canoe team. “It’s really fun, it’s a challenge for sure, but it’s worth it.”

On Saturday students will be at the DECC for a competition where they will assemble a 26-foot long steel bridge in 30 minutes or less and then test it.